Seeking Recommendation Beginner Occult Books + Resources

[Tasiya]

Hey Everyone,

Not sure if there is already a thread like this, but I thought I'd start one if there isn't

What are your favourite/number 1 recommended books (or other resources) for someone who is completely new to the occult and would like to dive into it?

I know some of the recommended foundational reading can be very dense and difficult to process for anyone who doesn't have background knowledge (Three Books of Occult Philosophy, for example), so where would you point an absolute beginner?

I'll start! The Esoterica channel on Youtube has been phenomenal for gaining a foundational understanding of occult principles, as has odinsmark(dot)com.

~T

 

[St. Stephen]

As some wise people on this forum once told me not too long ago, you gotta narrow down what it is that you're interested in. "The Occult" is an umbrella term that can mean different things to different people. I am assuming you're talking about Western Esotericism and the related magical practices since you brought up Agrippa.
A few questions for you - What interests you about Occultism? Is this a fascination due to the novelty and obscurity of this subject and you want to look at it from a distance, or are you looking to start a practice of some sort? Is there a particular system or tradition (that you've looked at so far) that you feel connected to in any way? Just trying to get a feel for where your head's at before I start firing off book suggestions.

Since you're already poking around youtube, check out The Glitch Bottle Podcast. You will learn a ton from that alone and hear the authors of some of the books I'll probably recommend talk on there.

 

[HoldAll]

First of all, the ALLCAPS title of your thread title is annoying, so I've edited it. Second, I have a good mind to give you an official Warning for being - by your own admission - too lazy to check whether a thread for beginner recommendation already exist; yes, there's at least half of them as well as a dedicated one about occult youtubers. This forum is also meant to be a resource, so kindly use it as such.

 

[Tasiya]

First of all, the ALLCAPS title of your thread title is annoying, so I've edited it. Second, I have a good mind to give you an official Warning for being - by your own admission - too lazy to check whether a thread for beginner recommendation already exist; yes, there's at least half of them as well as a dedicated one about occult youtubers. This forum is also meant to be a resource, so kindly use it as such.

Oh, my apologies! I assure you it was not out of laziness, I'm just not very tech-savvy when it comes to forums (there are so many threads and sections, much like Discord which I've also struggled with). I did use the search bar in the top right corner to try look for "beginner resources" and "beginner" before posting my thread, but it only came up with random posts with titles like "Do You Remember?" and "Most innocent demon to work with?", I can only assume it's because such words were posted in the thread itself. However I thought that if there was an entire thread dedicated to beginner resources, it would have been the first to come up since the keywords would have been in the title.
I also couldn't see anything on the landing page, which is where I thought such a section would be, given how a lot of people would probably look for that first.

Since you've mentioned there are already posts about this topic, I'm happy to remove mine and continue looking for them myself, though I don't think a simple confusion and miscommunication warrants such hostility and calling me lazy.

 

[HoldAll]

Oh, my apologies! I assure you it was not out of laziness, I'm just not very tech-savvy when it comes to forums (there are so many threads and sections, much like Discord which I've also struggled with). I did use the search bar in the top right corner to try look for "beginner resources" and "beginner" before posting my thread, but it only came up with random posts with titles like "Do You Remember?" and "Most innocent demon to work with?", I can only assume it's because such words were posted in the thread itself. However I thought that if there was an entire thread dedicated to beginner resources, it would have been the first to come up since the keywords would have been in the title.
I also couldn't see anything on the landing page, which is where I thought such a section would be, given how a lot of people would probably look for that first.

Since you've mentioned there are already posts about this topic, I'm happy to remove mine and continue looking for them myself, though I don't think a simple confusion and miscommunication warrants such hostility and calling me lazy.

Tick the "Search titles only" box. You can also choose the subsection you want to search in.